The Youth's Companion/July 19, 1860/The Rat and the Cobra
Variety.
The Rat and the Cobra.
Poisonous snakes often attack rats, hoping to get a good meal from them, but they generally find the rats ready to fight, and though the bite of the snake is sure to cause death, the bite of the rat generally leads to the same result. We suspect our readers wouldn’t like to live where such scenes as the following are of frequent occurrence:
I was just stooping down to select what I wanted, when I heard a tremendous flop behind me, and then a scuffle. Turning round I saw a cobra and a rat having a regular pitched battle. The cobra had been after the rat’s young ones, and the infuriated mother was thirsting for revenge. Though much alarmed for my own safety—for I had no means of escape without passing the cobra—I soon became intensely interested in the combat. At first the rat fought with the greatest caution, hopping from side to side with remarkable agility, and avoiding the poisoned fangs of the cobra; at last, however, the snake—which in the interval had received many severe bites—stung his adversary, and then the rat, apparently aware that its case was now hopeless, grew reckless, and closed in with its opponent. In less than two minutes it succeeded in killing the snake, and then crawling aside upon some straw, the victor died, apparently in the greatest agonies.
I had another illustration of the enmity existing between rats and snakes, many years afterwards, in Syria. I had sat up late reading a file of the Times newspapers; the servants had all been in bed for hours, and when I withdrew to my own, it wanted only a few hours of daylight. As I closed my bedroom door, I was startled by a tussling under the chest of drawers close by, and the next instant a rat darted out, followed by a huge snake, and these two set to work fighting right against the door. In my alarm, I upset the chair on which I had placed the candle, and found myself at once in utter darkness, locked in with a snake and a ferocious rat. To jump upon my bed was the work of an instant, and loudly did I bellow for assistance out of the window. I might as well have called to the winds to aid me. I had neither match nor weapon of defence, save a bolster, and the room was so dark that I could not distinguish my own hand, though held close before my nose. When the scuffle ceased, I expected every instant to feel the horrid clammy snake twisting itself round my legs, and in at unenviable anticipation, I remained three long hours, till broad daylight relieved me of my fears, and I found both combatants dead before the door.